on in St. Jude's,
Liverpool, and published it under the title of "The Famine, a rod;" a
rod that was meant to scourge England for tolerating Popery, of which he
said: "That it is a sin against God's holy law to encourage the fables,
deceits, false doctrines, and idolatrous worship of Romanism, no
enlightened Christian--no consistent member of the church of England can
deny."[308] "She [England] is fondly anticipating, as the result of
generous concession, that she shall witness Roman Cooperation in general
Liberty! Alas, for the Romans! With equal reason might she expect the
Ethiopian to change his skin, or the leopard his spots. With the rich
and responsible inheritance of an open Bible before her, and with free
access to the illustrations of authentic history, this absurdity is
England's sin, England's very great sin. There can be little doubt, that
except repentance _and amendment_ avert the stroke, this will prove
England's plague, England's great plague, England's very great
plague."[309]

It may be urged that the Rev. Hugh M'Neill is a man of extreme views. Be
it so; but his extreme views seem rather to have advanced his interests
than to have offended his superiors, for he is now Dean of Ripon.

Let us hear another and a very different stamp of man.

"I don't know whether I have mentioned before," writes Charles Dickens,
"that in the valley of the Simplon, hard by here, where, (at the Bridge
of St. Maurice over the Rhone), this Protestant canton ends and a
Catholic canton begins, you might separate two perfectly distinct and
different conditions of humanity, by drawing a line with your stick in
the dust on the ground. On the Protestant side, neatness; cheerfulness;
industry; education; continual aspiration, at least, after better
things. On the Catholic side, dirt; disease; ignorance; squalor; and
misery. I have so constantly observed the like of this, since I first
came abroad, that _I have a sad misgiving_, that the religion of Ireland
lies as deep at the root of all her sorrows even as English
misgovernment and Tory villainy."[310]

Charles Dickens is looked upon not only as the strenuous denouncer of
vice, but as the happy exponent of the higher and purer feelings of
human nature also. For three-fourths of his life he wrote like a man who
felt he had a mission to preach toleration, philanthropy--universal
benevolence. He had travelled much. He had been over Belgium and France;
he was through the Rhenish P